Commitment

Today, the word “responsibility” is an integral part of our language. People can take responsibility, avoid responsibility and relinquish responsibility. It appears to be a “thing” that you could pick up or pass on to someone else. This type of responsibility also manifests itself in people making a commitment to take on something. This commitment is intended to support tasks in a community.

The commitment can be voluntary or coerced. If you are instructed to be a volunteer (“You are a volunteer!”), it is rather forced. If someone decides to sponsor a child’s education, it is probably voluntary. Commitment is self-chosen responsibility in action.

Commitment is self-chosen responsibility in action.

However, the Bible does not speak of responsibility or commitment. They are words of our time, not expressions from the Bible. However, I maintain that the ideas of responsibility and commitment are very much contained in the Bible. By this I do not mean that I am advocating a doctrine of responsibility, but one can discover how responsibility may have been expressed at the time. Other words show a different perspective.

Defense

If you find the word “responsibility” in a translation, then the term “defense” (Greek apologia) is often found in the New Testament. Responsibility is then the defense of a statement, assumption or course of action. You stand up for something and take responsibility for it (Acts 22:1). Such a defense corresponds to a maturity, not a task.

Maturity

A child cannot yet take on responsibility. This only happens when it comes of age. Paul describes such a development in the following passage:

“But I say: As long as the lot owner is a minor, there is no essential difference to a slave, even though he is master of everything. Rather, he is subject to guardians and administrators until the time appointed by the father.”
Gal 4:1-2

When this time set by the father arrives, the child becomes a son. Now comes responsibility, as we call it today. The son grows up and responsibility is taken on as if by itself. This responsibility comes from maturity. In this context, responsibility is not an abstract “thing”, but the state of reaching “adult decisions” without guardians and administrators. Until then, it was just a training ground with teachers and others. The goal, however, is maturity, adulthood. It is the release into the responsible freedom of the adult.

Immature (gr. nepios) includes infants and young children (Mt 21:16). Paul also draws comparisons with the believers when he uses the term as follows:

“So, brothers, I could not speak to you as to spiritually minded people, but only as to carnally minded people, as to babes in Christ. I gave you something to drink, not solid food, because you were not yet able to eat it.”
1Cor 3,1-2

Whether in this world or in a spiritual comparison: minors are young children who are not yet able to eat solid food. But that is changing. Children become adults and mature.

The big difference

Here is the big difference to many Christian assumptions: Responsibility does not mean that we do or do not do certain things, but that we grow up and come of age. This is much more meaningful and more broadly considered than a synchronization with certain tasks. Responsibility arises from a responsible understanding of life. In other words, you start to think like an adult. This applies in our own lives and is also used as an image for spiritual growth.

Especially in a community of faith, growth should come first. Paul emphasizes this again and again when he writes, for example:

“According to the grace given to me by God, I (Paul), as a wise master builder, lay the foundation, but someone else continues to build on it. But let each one be careful how he builds on it!”
1Cor 3,10

“And for this I pray that your love may overflow more and more in knowledge and all sensitivity, that you may examine what is essential, so that you may be sincere and unobjectionable on the day of Christ.”
Phil 1:9-10

We should learn to recognize what is essential. That is a learning process. The term “essential” in Greek is “dia-phero”. It is that which is sustainable. In other words: When you grow up, you discover what helps you in life and what doesn’t. He learns to differentiate and recognizes what is essential.

This is the crux of the matter for tasks in the community: those who are still not adults can neither carry nor understand many things. If they have to be done anyway, you can see symptoms of adulthood, but not growth. Those who are adults can stand behind the communicated tasks of the church and support them responsibly, or they can also reject the same tasks responsibly towards themselves, God and the church. Both can be an expression of responsible action.

It is problematic when communities focus on external characteristics. Sometimes, as I have experienced, this degenerates into a demand for cadaver obedience from the members. You should behave this way or that, do this or that, leave it or even believe it. This only promotes conformity, but is not real growth.

Greenhouse

Are these statements the last word in wisdom? Hardly! This is not about right or wrong, but about feeling a healthy attitude of faith. You can then strive for this. Because I have been to several churches where obedience to the church leadership was marked as “right” and “adult”, I am more critical today. There, the demands on members arose from an internalized superiority. However, I still can’t explain this with adulthood in the biblical sense.

So I wonder where we would end up if we didn’t succumb to actionism for once, but instead pressed ahead with building up to spiritual maturity. Where do we stand a few years later? The vision for spiritual growth cannot be extorted by short-circuiting and cadaveric obedience. Responsibility is right if it is applied correctly and is an expression of an adult faith.

This can also be compared with the difference between the “works of the flesh” and the “fruit of the Spirit” (Gal 5:19-26). One is achieved through work, and not in the best sense. However, the fruit of the spirit automatically flourishes in the right circumstances.

Imagine the municipality as a greenhouse. It is of little use telling the plants that they “have to grow” in order to become responsible plants. That does not work. How can growth be achieved better?

The plants will thrive and the fruit will ripen in due time.

If the church is the greenhouse and the church leadership are the gardeners, they will provide for the growth of the plants, for sufficient nutrition, light, warmth and other things. The plants will thrive and the fruit will ripen in due time.